May all of your expectations be frustrated,
May all of your plans be thwarted,
May all of your desires be withered into nothingness,
That you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child
And can sing and dance in the love of God,
Who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Benediction by Brennan Manning via Maurice Broaddus
Last night we gathered at the tutoring center for our evening session together after a long day of painting houses and loving kids. Our pastor had invited members of our youth group to join us for the evening, and after he introduced them all, he invited them to answer some questions and share a bit about their lives here. They talked about their families, where their parents were from, how long they had lived in the community, where they lived, (Kenwood was seriously represented, with the majority of the kids being from our street), etc.
Every one of them had a story about how the violence of our community had touched them very personally–losing friends, witnessing murders, having bullets come into their apartments. One young boy told us about a drive-by that happened in front of his house that resulted in bullets flying through their living room window and striking his sister in the arm. He was thankful to God that the bullets had only hit her arm and not her head, he told us.
Our youngest V2LA participant (an 8 year-old) asked why nobody was doing anything to make the violence stop. And then he told us that if he were President, that would be the first thing he would do.
The kids all shared about their desires for getting a good education, for staying out of trouble, for being kids who, in one girl’s words, lived like they had a future. Two of our youth who have been a part of our church since its very beginnings told us about the program they are in that requires Saturday school every week from sixth grade through high school, high grades and test scores, and strong parental involvement: and how when they graduate, they will be given a free ride at USC down the street.
I closed our time sharing a bit about the things I love about raising my family here. I spoke about the high level of relationship and community we experience every day. On this crowded street, living a private, secluded life is simply not an option. Life is something we all do together, every day. I shared also about the high level of generosity I have witnessed over and over again from my neighbors, and how we have been invited to practice generosity as well. I told the group about how just last week a neighbor had rung our bell and handed over two bags filled with the best brands of baby gear (stuff we couldn’t afford, for sure!) that a wealthy Beverly Hills doctor had given to her to share with someone she knew of in need in her community (she cleans houses and this was a family she cleaned for). As someone recently shared with me, “you can’t out-give the poor…”
And lastly, I shared about how our children were being formed here to understand God’s love and mercy and to see the mission of the church as something radical and consuming and not merely peripheral to the rest of their lives. My kids are growing up thinking that it is perfectly normal to have homeless people as friends; to have people of different colors and languages regularly in their home; to buy and prepare food for people who are hungry.
As hard as this week has been for me emotionally, as I spoke last night I was reminded why living here is good.
Many have written kind notes of encouragement for me after last night’s shooting. Thank you for your sensitivity and kindness. I thank God for the grace of friends near and far who lift us up in prayer.
It turns out that there were at least thirty-eight shots fired, but as far as I know no one was injured. The shooting occurred about five minutes before our pastor arrived at the tutoring center to prepare for the V2LA gathering, and I thank God for the grace of protection over him and our guests.
I also learned from my sister today that the helicopter and police-tape perimeter on Monday afternoon was a part of officers apprehending two armed suspects who stole a car and were on their way into our community to shoot members of the Rolling 20’s who occupy our immediate streets. I thank God for the grace of the officer’s vigilance who spotted the suspects and chased them down.
Sometimes when a shooting is unsuccessful in hitting a target, there will be repeated attempts until that objective is met. Please join with me in praying for peace on our streets and continued measures of grace from our God who hears our cries.
UPDATE: Pastor Danny corrected me that someone was shot that night. We don’t know any more than that at this point.
I received this email yesterday morning, and it moved me so very deeply:
Erika,
Your blog post today was wonderful. And I’ve been toying with an idea that
I hope you can help me with - OR maybe you can direct me to someone else
that can help me.
I’ve been trying to be a better steward of our food money and I was hoping
to donate the money that we save each pay period to help feed those in need.
I could definitely give to the food bank or give more to the Union Gospel
mission but I was wondering about a more intimate and direct option.
I’m wondering if you know of a families OR maybe two families that I could
purchase a bi-weekly $50 grocery gift card for. I would appreciate any
feedback or input on my idea that you might have. I’m also hoping to find
some friends to do some similar giving on a purely personal basis.
It would be an honor to partner with someone in you neighborhood to care for folks in L.A. who are in this kind of need.
Your help is GREATLY appreciated.
I have already contacted this person with some information on a family in our community who could so greatly benefit from this kind of generosity. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
We just had a shooting down the street. I was putting the kids down when our apartment was filled with the sound of gunfire. It was so loud and there were so many shots: more than I have ever heard here before. Aaron started to scream from his crib and I raced into his room to make sure that he was okay and to pick him up and comfort him. I was trying to keep Mercy in one place, away from the windows, but she was confused and scared and followed me to get Aaron.
When I got into the kids’ room, I saw my neighbor whose windows are feet away from ours race to hers and pull back her curtains. Then I heard the scream. One of my other neighbors from next door, a young single mom, came running out of the fourplex, screaming her nine-year old son’s name. She ran so fast and never stopped calling for him, and I saw her find him at the end of the street across from where the bullets flew. Before she got to him, she started screaming for him to run home, arms waving wildly in the air.
By now, the helicopters were close overhead, and the cruisers had come to the scene in what seemed like seconds. Everyone was coming out of their doors and onto the street, straining to see what was going on.
I found my cell phone and called our V2LA organizer. The group was at Papa Cristos for dinner, but they were scheduled to be arriving at the tutoring center any minute for their evening time of worship and teaching. The shooting took place just feet away from the center’s front door.
Doug is leading worship for a Los Angeles Urban Project (LAUP) event, so I am home alone. While grateful that my guests were not here for this, I keep having to fight back tears and I don’t want to be alone. I can’t shake the image of my neighbor running, and I keep hearing her scream her son’s name in my head. My kids are safe as is her son, but it is moments like this when the terror comes and it feels like more than I can bear.
In discussions regarding economics, poverty and the like, people will call upon the words of Jesus that proclaim that the poor will always be among us. Many people have a sense that, well, inequality is just a result of the nature and function of social and economic systems, and they are certainly right. I have as much of a sense from scripture, however, that we as Christ-followers are called to witness to an alternative of this in our respective communities. Dr. Rah made the point well in his sermon on Sunday when he said that typically Christians are actually BEHIND the culture in caring for and responding to issues of economic justice and race, rather than visionaries setting a new standard, by the power of the Spirit that is in us. (But that is another post, entirely!)
The thing I have been realizing this week is that Jesus’ words speak to me of another reality. The needy that are among us are not “quick-fixes”, and how rare it is that a need is met for an individual or family that is not followed by yet another need and then another. And this is where “life together” with people who have not had access to education, racial privilege, stable families, quality health-care, etc. can really become draining. Most of us are willing and even eager to intervene in a situation of critical need and give help that can make a difference. Helping to pay for first and last month rent for a homeless family so that they can get into their own place, or giving someone in need of transportation our used car, are examples of the kind of generosity that can feel pretty satisfying and mostly easy. It is the second and third and tenth request for assistance that can make you want to stop answering your phone or front door.
It’s funny, though. Our invitation to generosity is not occasional. It is not reduced to our tax-deductible charitable gifts that we make in December. It is daily and weekly and sacrificial and self-denying, and it goes against every message our culture gives us concerning how we should think about ourselves. And while we should of course love people in ways that work against damaging forces of dependency, we should not chafe at the continual stream of need that is brought to our feet. We dare not, like the early disciples Ananais and Sapphira, decide that it really isn’t required of us to bring all of our excess to the table ready to share.
Yesterday was the kickoff for our “Vacation to L.A.” week with Pasadena Covenant Church. We started our day together with morning worship, and we were privileged to have Dr. Soong-Chan Rah and his family with us. Dr. Rah is a professor at North Park Seminary, and was a pastor of a multi-ethnic congregation in Cambridge, Massachusetts before that. He came to the seminary many years after I was a student there, and this was my first occasion to meet him and hear him preach. At Irvington Covenant, Pastor Henry would use this phrase during his sermons: “If you can’t say ‘Amen’, say ‘Ouch!’” Listening to Dr. Rah speak to us from the scriptures on the ways that our Christianity is more formed by our culture than by biblical texts, there were plenty of moments where Pastor Henry’s admonition rang true for us as a congregation.
Our guest family for the week arrived in our home around 3:00pm, and while my kids slept, our two middle-school guests busied themselves with toddler toys giving Doug and I a fair amount of amusement while we perused the latest vans listed on Craigslist. This family has stayed with us every year that we have done V2LA, and it is always so wonderful to have them move in for the week. They are at home in our apartment: they know that it’s okay to wrestle on the couch and help themselves to whatever in the fridge. And we are at home having them here.
This morning, Aaron wanted to do nothing else but follow their son around the apartment. Wherever Matt went, Aaron was never more than a few steps behind (I think Matt drew the line at using the bathroom). Aaron would come to him with his blanket, his favorite bunny, his stool, balls, whatever was precious in his mind, and he would hand them to Matt or drop them at his feet. It was like he was trying to show respect, or affection or something. Matt, the youngest in his family, is a GREAT big brother to have around, and Aaron is just soaking it up.
Right now, the group is out and about in the community, beginning work on painting one of our church members’ houses and cleaning and prepping the tutoring center for our summer program. Another smaller group of Pasadena Covenant members has also come in for half a day to run a little program for our babies and toddlers which they will do today, Wednesday and Friday. When I left, Mercy was sitting with the organizer who had told the story of the Good Samaritan who was patiently telling the story over and over again at Mercy’s request.
I have written about this before, but I probably can’t say it enough, that there is something profound that happens for me during weeks like this when people come alongside us to serve and share in our life here. We have a great community here, but there is a level of fatigue that comes with church-planting and ministering in an urban community like ours, as well as a sense of isolation. And to have partners and friends come and lift some of our common burdens for a week, and find creative ways to care for us while doing it, I fail with words to convey how much that blesses me.
“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want…”
Not too long ago, those of us at the Simple Way were about to speak to a congregation. The person doing the introduction said, “These folks are a voice for the voiceless.” And something inside me hurt. I gently corrected them. Everyone has a voice. I know many amazing people who have used the old “voice for the voiceless” line (Oscar Romero, Mother Teresa, even the book of Proverbs). But it just felt strange. Perhaps we are too quick to assume folks cannot speak for themselves.
We are not a voice for the voiceless. The truth is that there is a lot of noise out there drowning out quiet voices, and many people have stopped listening to the cries of their neighbors. Lots of folks have put there hands over their ears to drown out the suffering.
Shane Claiborne in The Irresistible Revolution via Jordon Cooper
That thing you said you would never do
I always said I would never drive a minivan. Maybe it was a result of those years at North Park, cruising around Albany Park in the Ford Aerostar (the Urban Outreach van) all the time. Maybe it was how I felt joining the minivan masses trying to pick the Staub girls up from their respective schools in Naperville when I would babysit. Or maybe it was my memory of a childhood with a Volvo station wagon at the center of life. I just could not see us making the choice to every buy a minivan.
Of course, I never saw us making the “choice” to have three kids in four years, either. And so it is that we are now passing our evenings on our respective computers, searching through Craigslist and submitting VIN numbers to Carfax, and getting Consumer Reports info from our dads. The fact is that neither of our cars can accommodate three car-seats, and the days of children sitting unrestrained in the “way back” of station wagons are gone. So, sometime before September, we need to join the ranks of “those people”, and find ourselves a decent minivan.
I truly hate car shopping. No matter how educated you are in making a decision, there is absolutely some amount of risk involved. Do you buy the higher mileage car because the loan would be more manageable? Or do you go into more debt to have a better vehicle that should last longer before requiring significant repairs?
We have been praying about this need for months. A new car was not at all in our plans, financially, and this will be a significant strain for us. We have been asking God to send us what we need, and we are continuing that exact prayer. We have seen so many other examples of literally miraculous provision come from places we could not have imagined, so we know that this need is not somehow out of God’s range.
Now I just have to get over my issues with being a minivan mom!
Today was our second day standing outside of Mack Elementary School handing out fliers and registering kids for the sports and art camps we are sponsoring next week. Although I didn’t have my two kids with me today (though they were awfully cute recruiters in their balloon-covered stroller yesterday), we still made for a surprising team: me, the pregnant white lady who speaks fluent Spanish, our beloved tutoring program director who just got back from language school in Guatemala, and one of our church board members, an African American woman who uses a wheelchair. Between the three of us we managed to meet, talk with, and register a good number of kids in the last two days, and tomorrow we are sure to get even more signed up.
It blesses me to see people’s reactions to us: the look of surprised relief that spreads over the grandma’s face when I speak to her in Spanish; the look on the African American bus driver’s face as he watches the three of us chat it up before the kids arrive; and of course the looks on the kids faces as they stare up at us with wide eyes when we tell them how excited we are that they are coming to our camp.
Doug and I were talking yesterday about salvation, and what the concept has been reduced to in our evangelical culture. I remember my own surprise in studying the theme of salvation in the Old Testament for a class at Fuller with Rick Beaton: I was overwhelmed by how much more communal and holistic it is than the ways we talk about it in our churches today. Standing outside of Mack today, I felt like I was a witness to that kind of good news, and it made my heart glad to be a part of it.